Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel; 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer, philosopher, dissident, and statesman. From 1989 to 1992, he served as the last president of Czechoslovakia. He then served as the first president of the Czech Republicafter the Czech–Slovak split. Within Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth5 October 1936
CityPrague, Czech Republic
leadership powerful hero
The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.
military hero creativity
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
giving-up struggle causes
The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.
chance criticize whole-life
You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.
thinking practice ideas
It's not true that you should first think up an idea for a better world and only then "put it into practice," but, rather, through the fact of your existence in the world, you create the idea or manifest it - create it, as it were, from the "material of the world," articulate it in the "language of the world.
giving promise demand
Every consession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept.
doubt distrust no-doubt
There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them.
thinking escaping world
Frank Zappa was one of the gods of the Czech underground, I thought of him as a friend. Whenever I feel like escaping from the world of the Presidency, I think of him.
hope heart thankful-to-god
I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is the feeling that life and work have a meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.
meaningful responsibility community
The question is...whether we shall, by whatever means, succeed in reconstituting the natural world as the true terrain of politics, rehabilitating the personal experience of human beings as the initial measure of things, placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human I,...
failure responsibility accepting
It's not hard to stand behind one's successes. But to accept responsibility for one's failures... that is devishly hard!
distance laughing perspective
The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.
hope hero feelings
Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
humility men world
As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.